Despite the disruption to transport services, the strikers continue to attract popular support French workers are set to continue their protests against planned pension reforms with a seventh day of walkouts.
Transport workers said they would continue their rolling strike on Wednesday, although some improvement to rail services is expected.
Student leaders have also called for more protests ahead of a senate vote on the retirement age later this week.
On Tuesday, at least 1.1 million people took to the streets across France.
The interior ministry put the figure at 1.1 million across the country, although the CGT union said the number was 3.5 million.
The street protests on Tuesday were comparable with the previous week’s national day of action, although police and unions gave widely differing numbers.
In Paris, the unions estimated that 330,000 demonstrators had taken to the streets but police put the number at 60,000.
Strikes have hit transport and education, 4,000 petrol stations have run dry and police have clashed with protesters in several cities.
President Nicolas Sarkozy appealed for calm but insisted he would press ahead with plans to raise the retirement age.
The day of action was being seen as a last attempt to mobilise protesters before the Senate’s final vote on the government’s pension reforms, which was originally scheduled for Wednesday.
The vote is now to take place later this week.
The BBC’s Gavin Hewitt in Paris says that union leaders have to decide how to keep up pressure on the government.
Although public support for their protests remain strong, workers are losing pay.
The planned increases in the retirement age from 60 to 62 and the full state pension age from 65 to 67 are widely unpopular in France. But the unions are wary about public reaction to long queues at petrol stations, our correspondent says.
Fuel supplies
The scale of disruption has begun to affect large parts of society, with a blockade of France’s 12 oil refineries hitting fuel supplies hard.
Energy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo told MPs that just under 4,000 petrol stations out of a total of 13,000 were awaiting supplies.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon announced plans to end the shortages within four or five days, by asking the main oil companies to share their reserves to replenish stocks at petrol stations around the country.
Source: IEA
Trains on the Paris Metro were heavily crowded as only about half the services were running and national rail operator SNCF said as many as three-quarters of its fast regional trains had been cancelled.
Education was also affected: the education ministry said 379 secondary schools were either blockaded by pupils or had suffered some disruption, the highest number since the protests began at the start of September.
In some areas, schools became a focus for violence. Outside a secondary school in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, youths threw stones at police who responded with tear gas.
For the second day running, cars were overturned and set alight in Lyon. There were also disturbances in Mulhouse and Montbeliard in eastern France.
Presidential ratings
Despite the widespread disruption, the strikers continue to attract popular support with one opinion poll suggesting that 71% of those surveyed back the industrial action.
President Sarkozy’s poll ratings appear to have dropped even further as he tries to tackle the wave of protests.
One poll for BVA conducted on 15 and 16 October suggested his approval rating was down to 30%, the lowest for three years.
The number of French with either a negative or very negative opinion of their president rose five points from September to 69%.
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